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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29837226">We said things in the dark</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prixin47/pseuds/IRememberThereWasMist47'>IRememberThereWasMist47 (Prixin47)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Love Never Dies - Lloyd Webber, Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 21:53:25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,037</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29837226</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prixin47/pseuds/IRememberThereWasMist47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"I stole to your side, tormented by my choice. I could not see your face, but trembled at your voice."</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Christine Daaé/Erik | Phantom of the Opera, Raoul de Chagny/Christine Daaé</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>We said things in the dark</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I've done my best to construct, from the exposition available in both shows, a plausible story of what took place between them.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“A chorus girl? Raoul, you cannot be serious! It was one thing when you were playing patron of your little opera house, but to bring some stage hussy here, to this house, and say you are to wed her? Ludicrous!”</p><p>Christine could hear the Dowager Vicomtesse’s raised voice from the other end of the hallway, where she sat like a schoolgirl struggling to hold back tears as she waited for an unpleasant visit with the headmistress.</p><p>This was not what she had anticipated when Raoul had swept her back into the light of day with his ring on her finger. She’d stepped into that very hallway only twenty minutes earlier, hand entwined with Raoul’s, thrilled to meet her future mother-in-law; but it seemed now that Raoul had either not been entirely prepared for his mother’s response or, worse still, had failed to prepare her.</p><p>“Maman, that’s not fair! Christine is widely recognized as a rising star in -”</p><p>“It does not matter how beautifully she sings,” spat the Dowager, cutting him off. “How do you think she will be received in society? Do you think people will overlook that she is the daughter of a nameless cellist with no title or money to his name?”</p><p>“Maman, Gustave Daaé was a violinist renowned throughout Europe and he and Papa were great friends! Surely that must mean something.”</p><p>“Alright,” she said, settling a little. “It means something. But not enough, Raoul! Not enough! Our family cannot afford to be embroiled in scandal. You know the sort of company your father kept. Monsieur Daaé may have been respectable enough, but... ”</p><p>Her voice grew fainter and Christine could not make out her words any longer. A few minutes later, a footman in full livery came up the stairs bearing a silver dish full of sweets, no doubt some favorite of the Dowager’s. As he passed Christine, he hazarded a glance in her direction and gave her the smallest of sympathetic smiles.</p><p>Heartened, she shrugged and smiled back as if to say, “here we are, the rabble. What will the upper classes do next?”</p><p>The butler came out again shortly, absent the silver dish, and approached Christine with an encouraging smile. “The Dowager Vicomtesse invites you to join her and the Vicomte in the parlor,” he said.</p><p>Christine stood shakily and took a deep breath, nodding her thanks to the kindly man, who was already turning to descend the staircase once again.</p><p>When she entered the parlor, she found the Dowager sitting on a blue brocade sofa, with Raoul across from her in a matching armchair.</p><p>“Come, my girl,” said the Dowager, patting the seat next to her, “sit and let me look at you properly.”</p><p>Christine could see that the Dowager’s eyes were puffy from crying, but now dry and clear. She curtsied demurely and cast her eyes to the beautiful Turkish rug before crossing to sit and raising her blue eyes to meet the Dowager’s brown ones.</p><p>The Dowager took her chin in one gloved hand and turned her face from side to side.</p><p>“There is no denying it,” she said, “you are a lovely girl. And my son tells me that your father was a world famous violinist. Isn’t that correct?”</p><p>Christine was about to correct her, to say that her father had been respected widely in Europe but had never toured further abroad. Then Raoul’s eyes caught hers and the meaning of this question became clear.</p><p>“Yes, Madame,” she said, glancing demurely down at her hands again. “He was known the world over.”</p><p>“And I am to understand that you are yourself on the verge of similar renown?”</p><p>“That is up to God,” said Christine, “but I have high hopes and I do not think them entirely misplaced.”</p><p>The Dowager, further assuaged by this display of piety, continued her questioning. “I understand that you had the great misfortune of losing your mother at a young age,” she said, a little warmth creeping into her voice now. “Where did you reside after your father’s death?”</p><p>“Father entrusted me to the care of Madame Giry at the Opera Populaire, Madame. I was brought up there with the other chorus girls and began singing and dancing with them almost at once.”</p><p>“And you have kept company,” the Dowager paused, “that is to say, there have been no untoward dalliances with anyone you’ve met at the opera or anywhere else?”</p><p>“Madame Giry is very strict,” Christine replied, casting her eyes chastely to the rug once again. Her thoughts strayed momentarily to the Phantom, to the years when she thought of him only as the Angel of Music, to the heat that had swelled in her when they had finally touched. “All we ever did was dance and sing and eat and sleep and pray. She would never have allowed anything else.”</p><p>“Very well,” said the Dowager, sitting up neatly. “You are no doubt aware that you are not the match I had envisioned for my son, but he is clearly besotted with you and you are of respectable enough background and character that this match is permissible.”</p><p>Raoul leapt to his feet. “This calls for a toast!” he exclaimed, ringing the bell for the footman to come again and bring a bottle of the finest champagne for himself, his Maman, and his bride-to-be.</p><p>~~~~~</p><p>“America? That’s preposterous!” He sat down hard on the wooden bench in Madame Giry’s apartments, a few blocks from the ruin of the opera house.</p><p>“Master, surely you must understand that we do not have many options,” replied Madame Giry as Meg poured more wine into his now empty glass.</p><p>He paused for what felt like several minutes, inhaling and exhaling through his nose.</p><p>“And what do you propose we do when we get to <em>America?</em>” He spat out the last word as if it were something filthy and beneath him.</p><p>“We will set up a show, Master,” said Giry, “a carnival attraction. At first it will be merely a few acts but over time…”</p><p>“You mean to show me off to the gawping masses as some kind of sideshow freak again, is that it?” he spat, standing up and crossing the room to her. His face inches from hers.</p><p>She stood her ground. “You misunderstand me, Master. I do not mean that <em>you</em> should be on display. I mean that you should orchestrate a sideshow production unlike any ever seen. Mechanical marvels. Musical contraptions. We may show human oddities, yes. But <em>you</em> are far beyond that now.”</p><p>He seemed somewhat mollified, but then he took a ragged breath and sat down again. “And what of Christine.”</p><p>“Miss Daaé is to be wed,” Giry replied, as gently as she could. “You bid her to go yourself. I thought...”</p><p>“It is best that she is with him,” he said, his voice still raw. “I only wish.”</p><p>“You love her, Master,” said Meg kindly, sitting down beside him. “But in time…”</p><p>“We all wish many things when we are in love,” Madame Giry interjected, “but the time has come to put her behind you and start a new life. For all of us.”</p><p>“And when are we to leave?” he asked the elder woman at last.</p><p>“We set sail from Callais in sixteen days.”</p><p>“Very well,” he said, and drained his glass yet again.</p><p>~~~~~</p><p>“You must long be used to such fittings, Mademoiselle, after living at the opera house” said Claire, smiling up at Christine as she pinned the hem of a white gown.</p><p>“Nothing like this I assure you,” she replied, smoothing the front of the dress over her stomach and marveling at its softness.</p><p>“Do leave some room in front Claire,” came a sneering voice from the front of the shop, where two beautifully-dressed women, apparently mother and daughter, had been browsing. “Who knows what might happen to the young lady’s figure during such a short engagement.”</p><p>Christine blushed, “Madame I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”</p><p>“Oh come now,” said the older woman, “surely you do not expect anyone to believe that the Vicomte de Chagny would marry a chorus girl if she were not already carrying his child.”</p><p>“Out!” said Claire, standing sharply and taking a harsher tone than either lady had ever heard from a tradeswoman before. “I will not have that kind of talk in my shop. Out! And do not come back until you can keep a civil tongue in your head.”</p><p>Once the women had left in a pompous huff, Christine burst into tears.</p><p>Claire led her to a chaise and brought out a handkerchief.</p><p>“Do not give those harpies another thought,” she said, as Christine dried her tears. “Madame Duque had hoped to wed her daughter to the Vicomte. They’re both spiteful social climbers and he’s well rid of them.”</p><p>Christine shuddered and fresh tears rolled down her face. “This is the third time this week that some society lady has said something like that to me; in a tea shop, at a ball, and now here in your atelier.”</p><p>She stood and wrung her hands bitterly, “oh I wish Raoul hadn’t insisted on such a short engagement! His mother was right, it does give the look of a scandal, especially given my station.”</p><p>“Men never take the time to understand these things,” replied Claire, standing and giving Christine a consoling pat on the shoulder. “But soon enough, you will be the Vicomtesse de Chagny and then nobody will dare treat you so rudely. Your life is about to change in ways you cannot even begin to comprehend.”</p><p>~~~~~</p><p>Claire’s words did not sit easily with Christine that night as she paced the floor in her room at the boarding house where the opera’s performers and directors lodged.</p><p>Her life had already changed beyond anything she could have imagined. How much more change could she possibly endure?</p><p>Her father’s death had changed the very nature of her reality only a handful of years ago; and then shortly thereafter she had been visited by a man she believed to be the Angel of Music, sent by her father to comfort her in her grief. Each night, while the other girls slept, he drew her to the pitch dark wings of the opera house and she felt something of her father’s love returning to her as their voices entwined.</p><p>But that bliss had come to ruin as well, when the tortured genius behind that voice revealed himself to her in all his grotesque splendor.</p><p>Christine felt tears spring to her eyes as she recalled the night of the fire, when she had given herself to him fully; at first to save Raoul and then again because something came over her when she felt his lips on hers.</p><p>But for all his bravura, the poor thing had not even been able to put his hands on her or return her kiss. He could not bring himself to seize his prize when he had well and truly won her.</p><p>Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door.</p><p>“Christine? Are you quite all right in there? Your pacing is keeping the whole dormitory awake.”</p><p>Christine opened the door and welcomed Meg into the room.</p><p>“No,” she said, “I am not quite alright.” And she unfurled the whole story of the vicious, sniping society women.</p><p>But of the rest; how could she explain to Meg what she had felt when she touched him, that man, that Phantom in the darkness?</p><p>“Christine, forgive me,” said Meg gently, “but it's clear to me that your burdens are greater than the unkind opinions of strangers. How many years have we known each other? Please tell me what really troubles you.”</p><p>Christine turned to her with a somewhat watery smile. “Meg, do you bel-,” her voice caught in her throat and she stopped to dab at fresh tears that were springing from her eyes. “Do you believe it possible that I could have, even in some small measure, loved the man who called himself the Phantom of the Opera?”</p><p>Meg looked dumbfounded and she blinked repeatedly as she gathered her thoughts. “I suppose it’s possible,” she said. “His music. His genius. His passion. All those years of singing together in the darkness. His need for you. It would make sense that you would feel something for him, Christine. But love?”</p><p>And then, as she heard her predicament reflected back to her through Meg’s eyes, Christine saw the true cause of her anguish clearly at last.</p><p>“Yes, Meg. Love. I think. No. I know. I fell in love with him.”</p><p>Meg took a deep breath.</p><p>“Then there is something you need to know.”</p><p>~~~~</p><p>The Opera Populaire was not quite gutted by the fire, which had mostly been set in the vaults and catacombs of the building as the mob searched in vain for the Phantom. Much of the backstage area was still intact, as were the flies above.</p><p>Christine did not have difficulty finding her way to the roof, but upon opening the trap door, she found herself in pitch darkness. The stars provided only the barest twinkle of light, but without even a sliver of a moon, she could not have seen her hand in front of her face.</p><p>And yet somehow she knew that he was there.</p><p>She steadied herself and took a breath. “Angel of Music, guide and guardian. Grant to me your glory.”</p><p>Her voice rang out over the rooftop and faded to silence. For a moment, she thought perhaps that she had been mistaken, or that he had gone.</p><p>“Christine?”</p><p>His voice was rough. Rawer than she had ever heard it, even in his fits of rage.</p><p>“I’m here.”</p><p>She felt a rush of air come towards her and then there he was, his arms around her, his hand holding her head to his chest, his lips brushing her forehead.</p><p>Her hands flew around his neck and then slowly came down to caress his face, ragged and unmasked, without pity or revulsion.</p><p>“Christine. Christine. Christine,” he said her name again and again, like a prayer, like a psalm, like an incantation.</p><p>They held each other like that for a long time. Tears welled in her eyes and she let them fall silently onto his chest.</p><p>“How?” he asked finally, and she could tell that he too was weeping. “Why?”</p><p>By way of an answer, she turned her face up to him and kissed him; her lips softly brushing his. She didn’t want to overwhelm him as she had before.</p><p>He pressed his lips to hers in return, just barely; but it was enough for her to know she wanted more.</p><p>“Please,” she breathed.</p><p>“Christine, are you certain?”</p><p>“If I were not certain, would I have climbed a ladder in a half-ruined building onto a pitch dark rooftop in the dead of night not knowing whether or not you would be here?”</p><p>“Forgive me,” he said, after a moment. “Truly. I don’t know how to believe that you would choose to be here with me.”</p><p>“Because I love you,” she said, before adding with the barest of chuckles, “God help me.”</p><p>For a fraction of a second, she feared that her jest might provoke his wrath, but he surprised her by chuckling a little in return. “God help us both.”</p><p>And then his mouth was on hers without any of his earlier shyness or reservation. He wound one hand into her hair as the other hand slid down her lower back. Her body was flooded again with that same strange, wild yearning that she’d first felt when they sang together in the darkness all those years ago.</p><p>But now, the music was in his pulse, his heartbeat, the feeling of his mouth on hers.</p><p>He drew his lips away from hers and buried his face in the crook of her neck, kissing her from jaw to collarbone. His hot breath sent shivers across her flesh and she sighed, which only seemed to spur him on.</p><p>Swiftly, and with very little effort, he bent and lifted her, carrying her like a bride on her wedding night through the impenetrable darkness before laying her down on a meager little pallet in a makeshift shelter and coming to rest beside her.</p><p>“This is where you sleep now?” she asked.</p><p>“This is all I can offer you, Christine. I have nothing left.”</p><p>“We have each other,” she said. “That will be enough.”</p><p>He could not believe what he was hearing. He had always been certain that his hideous monstrosity of a face would make such a moment as this impossible. No woman would ever love, ever choose, a man such as him.</p><p>And yet here she was.</p><p>He stroked her face, felt every line of it in the darkness. He brushed her lips with his fingertips and then kissed them. She relaxed into his arms as he touched her, slowly brushing his hands down her throat and over her solar plexus, wondering how far he dared go.</p><p>She signed into his mouth and guided his hand to her breast.</p><p>He pulled away from her, aroused to be sure, but surprised at her boldness.</p><p>“Did you think me that much of an innocent?” she asked with a smile in her voice. “I have never touched anyone like this before, but the girls do talk about what they’ve read in novels. I may have even read one or two myself.”</p><p>“I must confess,” he replied, “that I have never touched anyone like this either, except in my wildest fantasies of… of you.”</p><p>She lifted her lips to his ear. “Show me what you do in these fantasies.”</p><p>He’d begun to swell when she kissed him the first time, but now the evidence of his desire for her was undeniable. He pressed himself against her gently and she shuddered.</p><p>“Do you feel how much I want you, Christine? How much I need you?”</p><p>In response, she lifted her skirts and guided his hand between her legs. He became lightheaded when he felt how slick she was.</p><p>He slid down then and brushed his lips slowly up her thigh, laying soft kisses on her lips, her mound, and around again before extending his tongue to lick the places where she was becoming still more deliciously wet.</p><p>She moaned as his tongue found one aching spot after another, and her hips began to rock.</p><p>“Fingers,” she breathed. But from the cocoon of her skirts, he couldn’t quite hear her.</p><p>He pulled away and came out from beneath her petticoats. “Is this alright?” he asked, nervous that he’d done something wrong.</p><p>“Oh don’t stop!” she cried. “I said, ‘fingers.’ Please, use your fingers!”</p><p>Delirious with joy and pleasure, he found his way back beneath the maze of garments (how on Earth did women put these things on?) and back to that sweet center of her body that was begging for his touch.</p><p>Instinctively, he licked his fingers before returning his tongue to her swollen folds. He felt something deep inside her clenching and he addressed his fingers to the spot where it met the surface. He was met with an almost instantaneous suction that pulled his fingers inside her,</p><p>He felt her heartbeat thrumming there, and he explored deeper still, feeling carefully for her response to his touch. She began to rock her hips and press herself against him. Her legs began to tremble and, absent any complaints from above, he continued moving his tongue and fingers at precisely the same tempo.</p><p>Her movements became more feverish still, and he met her every movement until at last he heard her cry out and felt her squeeze around his fingers again and again. A depth of tenderness welled within him then unlike anything he had ever experienced before. It felt like magic. Like an answered prayer. Like the most beautiful music he’d ever played.</p><p>He extracted himself once again from her petticoats to find her flushed and panting. She drew him to her and kissed him with a gratitude and passion that made the music in his heart swell further still.</p><p>She trailed her hand over his ravaged face, trying to banish forever any notion that she could not love this part of him. Then, sensing that he was too overwhelmed with joy to be ashamed, she trailed her hand down his chest, over his belly, and to the bulge in his trousers that she knew must be sorely in need of attention.</p><p>The pressure of her hand sent a symphony of pleasure through his body and he opened his mouth, kissing her more deeply still before pulling away, resting his forehead against hers as he frantically unbuttoned his trousers and brought himself out, laying the most tender part of his body in her open hand.</p><p>She stroked it gently and he took her hand in his and tightened her grip. “This, Christine,” he hissed into her ear, “is how I stroked myself, so feverishly, after each of those nights when we sang together in the wings. Dreaming of a moment like this. Secretly. Oh… Christine.”</p><p>“Show me,” she whispered, "show me what you imagined." He obliged almost instantaneously. It was not difficult to find his way now that his fingers had become so intimately familiar with her body and soon he was resting against her opening. He wished for just the briefest moment of light to see her face as he slid inside her, but the rapturous sound she made when he did was more than enough.</p><p>They rocked together, slowly at first. Tongues intertwining, hands moving over garments not yet cast aside.</p><p>“Christine, I love you,” he whispered.</p><p>“And I love you,” she echoed, and began moving her hips faster, pressing up into him with feverish abandon and crying out once again as she had done before. He rushed to meet her pace and found himself flying over a precipice of sensation he never could have anticipated. All those nights of touching himself and dreaming of her, nothing compared to the feeling of her body against his like this.</p><p>When they were both spent and lay panting beneath the moonless sky, she began to giggle a little.</p><p>“What?” he asked, a little giddy himself. “What’s funny?”</p><p>“I’m just glad I finally understand what all the fuss was about.”</p><p>They lay in silence for a time, her head on his chest, gazing up at the brilliant stars before she said, “I’ll tell Raoul in the morning that I cannot marry him. There will be a scandal but frankly, I’ve had enough of Paris society for one lifetime. We’ll leave and start a new life somewhere where you can compose and I can sing and we can be free. I have a little savings of my own and we can get by on that at first.”</p><p>He felt then as though his heart would burst. He’d never known anything so simple, so sweet, so complete as this. He stood and began to remove his clothes. All these ridiculous layers of cloth that stood between him and the only person he had ever truly cared for. She came to join him, kissing him, running her tongue over his chest, teasing his nipples, showing him how to unlace her corsets and remove her overskirts.</p><p>And then they stood, naked as Adam and Eve under the faint starlight, without shame and without hesitation, and his hands were in her hair and on her thighs and between her legs. He nibbled on her earlobes and licked her nipples and kissed her belly button before nuzzling in to taste her again and finding that he liked the flavor of their bodies, their pleasure, mingled together very much indeed.</p><p>He found himself swelling again and came up beside her, intending to slide into her once again, but she stopped him and pressed against his shoulder, climbing on top of him and sliding herself down until he was buried inside of her so completely he gasped.</p><p>She brought her face to his and kissed him. His mouth, his face - the ragged and the whole without distinction. She rocked her hips slowly on him and his hands found his way to her breasts, which he held almost reverently while she rode him. He rubbed his palms against her nipples and felt her shiver and clench on him again.</p><p>He felt droplets fall onto his face and, at first he thought that it must be raining, but then he tasted salt on his lips and realized that she was crying.</p><p>“Christine,” he said, and reached up to wipe her tears, “what is it? Am I hurting you?”</p><p>She snuffled a little, “when you first came to me, first sang to me, I remember thinking that it felt like holy communion. But this…” she trailed off, at a loss for words.</p><p>He wrapped his arms around her and rolled them both over in one fluid motion. He brought his lips to her ear and sang to her, sotto voce, “you alone can make my song take flight. Help me make the music of the night.”</p><p>And then they were both overcome - by the music, by their desires, by one another - and fell into each other again and again beneath the moonless sky.</p><p>~~~~~~</p><p>“You stupid brat! You did what?”</p><p>“Maman, how could I not have told her? I never thought it possible, but she truly does love him. Do you wish misery on them both?”</p><p>“Of course not, child,” replied Madame Giry, taking a steadying breath. “But with the opera house destroyed, there is nothing here for us. We must leave Paris and make a new start somewhere. We can make something with him - his genius, his art.”</p><p>“Then why can Christine not join us? Surely there is room on the ship for her as well. Surely with her voice and my dancing...”</p><p>“Because as long as she is with him, he will create for no one else, cher,” she said. Was her daughter really this much of a simpleton?</p><p>“In time,” she began, “the Master will forget Christine. Love always fades if you give it enough years.”</p><p>~~~~~~</p><p>She was nestled behind him, his body shielding her eyes from the first blush of dawn that woke him. He turned to look at her, soft and naked and lovely, with her hairpins askew and titian curls flowing across the blankets in his mean little rooftop hovel. Instinctively, he reached for his mask, but realized that he didn’t even know where it was.</p><p>Had he imagined it, or had she truly pledged herself to him? To a new life together far from Paris? To a lifetime of music?</p><p>But what could he give her, really? Raoul could make her a Vicomtesse, whereas he could offer her only poverty and ostracism; for whatever renown her talents and loveliness brought her would surely be despoiled by her hideous companion.</p><p>No. He would not force a life of damnation on this angel; this peerless creature whose voice would haunt him for all his remaining days.</p><p>He stood and found his clothing, his mask flung far afield on the rooftop in the fit of self pity that had been interrupted by Christine’s appearance the night before. He wished bitterly that he could go back to that moment and play the events of last night in one endless loop for the rest of his life. He needed nothing more.</p><p>He looked back one last time upon his sleeping beloved, sealing her forever in his memory, and then slipped into the last remnants of the night.</p><p>~~~~~</p><p>“One Franc, Madame,” said the publisher, bleary eyed at having been woken so early. “I cannot do this for anything less."</p><p>Grudgingly, Madame Giry scraped down deep into her purse and withdrew the balance, holding it out to the publisher, who reached to take it as she pulled it back from his grasp.</p><p>“And the story will run in today’s paper,” she said, “just as I’ve told it to you. A masked man, hideously deformed, killed by a mob in the early hours of the morning in the streets near the opera house.”</p><p>“It will if you pay me now, but the presses start in three minutes, Madame.”</p><p>She dropped the coins into his waiting palm.</p><p>~~~~~</p><p>Christine awoke with more joy in her heart than she had known since the death of her father. She opened her eyes to the dawn, eager to see her lover smile and laugh as she had heard him do the night before.</p><p>But the rooftop was empty.</p><p>She waited a little while, hoping that perhaps he had left to find some food or to make some arrangements, but when he did not return, she stood to dress and found her way back down the ladder and into the depths of the opera house she knew so well.</p><p>She sang as she went, hoping to find him here somewhere, to rouse him with the sound of her voice; but all that came back to her was the echo of her own lofty soprano. There were no more husky baritone notes to be found.</p><p>She made her way back to her lodgings, her head a muddle. Where could he be? Surely he would find her as he always did when the time was right.</p><p>But then she passed a group of paper boys getting ready to set out with their morning wares, and her eyes fell on a headline that stopped her blood cold.</p><p>“Masked Man Murdered,” it read. “Hideously disfigured man discovered dead on the Rue Auber in the early hours of the morning.”</p><p>She could read no further. She caught herself against the wall of the boulangerie and struggled to catch her breath.</p><p>Dead.</p><p>He was dead.</p><p>~~~~~</p><p>If the French society ladies noticed that the bride was a little grimmer-faced or fuller figured two weeks later, they said nothing. There was little point in continuing to attack Christine now that she was the Vicomtesse de Chagny. They would find something new to gossip about, as they always did.</p><p>And on the deck of a freighter bound for America, Madame Giry inhaled a satisfied breath of sea air; with her daughter and their brokenhearted companion safely belowdecks.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Heartbroken and devastated by the ending? Want a happy palate cleanser?</p><p>
  <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29871768">Here you go.</a>
</p></blockquote></div></div>
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